Concept of Freedom in Gita and that of kant- A Comparative study

Dr V.K.Maheshwari Pallavi Singh Dr Saroj Aggarwal Ph.D M.Ed Ph.DPrincipal Lecturer Sr LecturerD.I.M.S D.I.M.S D.I.M.SMeerut INDIA Meerut INDIA Meerut INDIA

When men have thrown off their ignorance, they are free from pride and delusion. They have conquered the evil of worldly attachment. They live in constant union with the Atman. All craving has left them. They are no longer at the mercy of opposing sense-reactions. Thus they reach that state which is beyond all change.” (Bhagavad Gita 15:5) This is the state of moksha–of freedom.

Certainly one may say, ‘Freedom to speak or write can be taken from us by a superior power, but never the freedom to think!’ But how much, and how correctly, would we think if we did not think, as it were, in common with others, with whom we mutually communicate!- Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason

People typically believe in the importance of freedom of thought, the freedom to think and believe without coercion from outside forces. To what extent do people actually make use of this freedom, however? How many people really think and believe independently of peer pressures and social coercion?

There are two kinds of freedom the freedom of man and the freedom of the will. There is not only a difference between the two freedom but there is also antagonism between the two. which is the cause of considerable confusion This is especially the case when we compare the Indian conception of freedom with that in vogue at present in the West, The freedom of man may mean the abrogation of the freedom of the will and vice versa. Man is free when he is liberated from the bondage of the senses. But then he loses what is usually meant by the freedom of the wil that is to say freedom to do good as well as evil because evil doing is the

result of the domination of the senses, and therefore it is not possible for a man who is completely free from this domination to do evil. Conversely the man who possesses freedom of the will that is who can act rightly as well as wrongly is not a free man and is still in bondage of his senses. Indian philosophy without any exception has understood freedom to mean the freedom of man and all its discussion of freedom has centered round the question as to how this freedom is to be obtained and what its characteristics are.

This difference between the two kinds of freedom cannot however be looked upon as constituting the difference between the Indian and the western views of freedom. For the western view of freedom has also been for considerable periods of history the same as the Indian view. That is to say it has also taken freedom to mean freedom of man. It is only comparatively recently that the problem of freedom has come to mean in the west the problem of free choice that is the power to choose evil as well as good, Both these kinds 0of freedom are found in Kant.

In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant distinguishes between the transcendental idea of freedom, which as a psychological concept is "mainly empirical" and refers to "the question whether we must admit a power of spontaneously beginning a series of successive things or states" as a real ground of necessity in regard to causality] and the practical concept of freedom as the independence of our will from the "coercion" or "necessitation through sensuous impulses." Kant finds it a source of difficulty that the practical concept of freedom is founded on the transcendental idea of freedom, but for the sake of practical interests uses the practical meaning, taking "no account of… its transcendental meaning", which he feels was properly "disposed of" in the Third Antinomy, and as an element in the question of the freedom of the will is for philosophy "a real stumbling-block" that has "embarrassed speculative reason.

In the Critique of pure reason, Kant wishes to point out that reason creates the idea ,that it initiates absolutely a casual series and at the same time, prescribes laws of causality to the cognition, and thereby involves itself in an antinomy .He thus seeks to prove that the determines of nature does not all together preclude the idea of free causality.

It is a great service which Sidgwick has done to the under standing of Kant’s ethics by pointing out that both the kinds of freedom mentioned above are found in Kant. That freedom which we have called freedom of the will has been given the designation neutral freedom by Sidgwick and that which we have called freedom of man is given by him the name rational freedom. And he very clearly points out that both these kinds of freedom are found in Kant. To quote his own words “my aim is to show that in different

parts of Kants exposition of his doctrine two essentially different conceptions are expressed by the same word freedom while ye he does not appear to be conscious of any variation in the meaning of the term. In the one sense, freedom= Rationality, so that a man is free in proportion as he acts in accordance with reason. We do not in the least object to this use of the term freedom on account of its deviation from ordinary usage. On the contrary we think it has much support in means natural expression of ordinary moral experience in discourse. But defenders of man free agency have generally been concerned to maintain is that man has a freedom of choice between good and evil, which is realized or manifested when he deliberately chooses evil just as much as when he deliberately chooses good; and it is clear that if we say that a man is a free agent in proportion as he acts rationally, we cannot also say in the same sense of the term that it is by his free choice that he acts irrationally when he does so act If this be admitted, the next thing is to show that Kant does use the term in this double way. In arguing to be two distinct ideas. Accordingly, the term in this double way. In arguing this, it will be convenient to have names for what we admit to be two distinct ideas. Accordingly, the kind of freedom which we first mentioned—which a man is said to manifest more in proportion as he acts more under the guidance of reason – shall be referred to as ‘Good’ or ‘ Rational; Freedom that is manifested in choosing between good and evil shall be called ‘Neutral’ or ‘ Moral Freedom.’” He goes on: “Speaking broadly’ O may say that, wherever Kant has to connect the notion of Freedom with that of Moral Responsibility or moral imputation, he, like all other moralists who have maintained free Will in this connection, means (chiefly, but not solely) Neutral Freedom-Freedom exhibited in choosing wrong as much as in choosing right. Indeed, in such passages it is with the freedom of the wrong-chooser that he is primarily concerned; since it is the wrong-chooser that he especially wishes to prevent from shifting his responsibility on to cause beyond his control. On the other hand, when what he has to prove is the possibility of disinterested obedience to Law as such, without the intervention of sensible impulses, when he seeks to exhibit the independence of Reason in influencing choice then in many though not all his statements he explicitly identifies Freedom with this independence of Reason, and thus clearly implies the proposition that a man is free in proportion as he acts rationally.”

Neutral or Moral Freedom

In his first view of Freedom Kant contrasts human beings with natural objects. The former he calls free causes, that is to say, causes which are not subject to the causality of anything other than

themselves. The latter form a system of natural causes, where one event is determined by another event. Of course, human beings are free causes only so far as their moral life is concerned; in other respect, they are, exactly like natural objects, subject to the causality of agencies other than themselves. that is to say, they cannot be treated as means to anything else. They are also autonomous, that is to say, subject to their own rule, and not to the rule of anything other than themselves. They, in fact, form what Kant has called a “Kingdom of ends” or a union of self-legislative beings, which represents Kant’s conception of ideal society. This view of freedom, it may be observed, is purely negative. That is to say, it indicates what freedom is not, rather than what it is. It it emphasizes the fact that if there is any determination by any external agency, then there cannot be any freedom but it does not give any positive content to freedom. Kant’s second view of freedom, what Sedgwick has called rational freedom, is more prominent in his ethical writings than the first. Under the influence if this second view, Kant makes no distinction between Will and Reason. Thus, in a passage of acting according to the representation of laws, i.e. has a Will: and since, to deduce actions from laws, Reason is required, it follows that Will is nothing else than practical Reason.” Similarly, in a passage in his Critique of Practical Reason, he speaks of the objective reality of a pure will, or, which is the same think, a pure practical reason. Now if will is the same as reason, then there is no possibility of willing a wrong act, the only way, therefore, in which a wrong act can be committed is through the domination of feeling and passions, when the will is temporarily held in abeyance. Will full wrong-doing would be ruled out on this view freedom. But it would ruled out, not for the reason which made so crated rule it out, may be, because virtue is knowledge, but because will and radon are identical, the proposition “virtue is knowledge” is not possible for cant, because he has put knowledge on a lower level then virtue, for, in his view, reason doesn’t dine in its full glory in knowledge, been under the necessity of having to pass through the medium of sense, whereas in virtue reason exhibits it self in all its splendor. Kant’s second view of freedom he shares with the older rationalists, like Plato and Spinoza, Plato in his phased calls belligerence from the bondage of the body, that is, every thing which is sensuous, true freedom, and therefore says that the philosopher, far from fearing death, rather welcomes it. So also Spinoza conceives freedom in the same manner. Thus, he says, in connection with the demonstration of

prop. 57 of the fourth part of is ethics, “a free man, that is to say, a man who lives according to the dictates of reason alone, is not led by the fear of that” so again, in the demonstration ode the proposition, he says, “ I have said that the man who is free is led by radon alone.” For Spinoza, as is clear from the above quotations, freedom and rationality mean the same thing; inversely bondage is described by him as subjection to emotions and passions. “the important the man.” He says in preface to the fourth part of ethics, “to govern or restrain the effects I called bondage, from a man who is under this control is not is own master, but is mastered by fortune, in whose power he is, so that he is often for to follow the worse, although he sees the better before him. “It is possible, no doubt, to reconcile cant’s first view of freedom with the second with the help of the convection of graded self. One way then say that freedom means self-determination, as Kant says in his first view of freedom, but self may have all grades, from a mere animal self to the self of pure reason, and in its final form, therefore, self-determination means nothing as then determination by pure reason, which is cants second view of freedom. Mackenzie, infect, as made this reconciliation, and has called freedom, meaning determination by pure reason, highest freedom, but he has done this from the stand point of the Hegelian philosophy, although it is the common place of Hegel’s philosophy.

Coming now to the Gita, the first freedom of can’t, that is to say the freedom which is realized in both right and wrong action, is one which it will not touch with a pair of tongs With his intellect unattached at all times, with conquered self, free from desire, by renunciation, one attains the supreme state of freedom from action.” (Bhagavad Gita 18:49) In chapter 3, verse 37, it clearly points out what it considers to be the cause of wrong action: “ it is desire, it is wrath begotten by the quality rajas, all, consuming, all- polluting of known thou this as over enemy here on earth.” And the remedy which is proposes for getting rid of wrong action it indicate in verse 41 of the same chapter as follows: “ therefore, o best of the bharatas, mastering first the senses, do thou slay this thing of sin, destructive of wisdom and knowledge.” The perfect mastery over the senses and the complete eradication of sin, however, are in its view only possible through supra-rational consciousness, as stated in verse 43 of the same chapter : “Thus awakening by the understanding to the Highest which is even the discerning mind, restraining the self by the self, slay thou, O mighty-armed, this enemy in the form of desire, who is so hard to assail,” The ordinary sensuous consciousness creates bondage, and even Buddhi or Reason is not in a

position to give complete freedom from bondage. Consequently, it is necessary to ascend to supra-rational consciousness if one wants to be completely free. This takes us to a standpoint higher than that of Kant’s rational freedom. This is also indicated by the words “restraining the self by the Self.” The lower self is to be controlled by the Higher self which is even higher than Reason (seen the previous verse, where it is stated that “greater than Reason is He”). The same thing is said in 6.5 : “Raise the self by the Self.”

It should be noticed clearly that there is no identification here, as in Kant’s second view of freedom, of Will and Reason, and consequently, no attempt to rule out deliberate wrong-doing. Deliberate wrong-doing, in fact, is Gita points out in the sixteenth chapter, normal for men of the asurika type. And most men – and even Arjuna – are of this type. One of the main characteristics of such men is excess of egoism, as stated in verses 13-16 of this chapter. “They say to themselves, This much wealth is secured by me to-day and now I shall realize this ambition. So much wealth is already with me, and yet again, this shall be mine. That enemy has been slain by me and I shall kill those others too. I am the lord of all, the enjoyer of all power. I am endowed with all supernatural powers, and am mighty and happy. I am wealthy and own a large family ; who else is like unto me? I will sacrifice to the Gods, I will give alms, I will make merry. Thus blinded by ignorance, enveloped in the mesh of delusion and addicted to the enjoyment of sensuous pleasures, their mind bewildered by numerous thoughts, these men of a devilish disposition fall into the foulest hell.” From this point of view, even Arjuna,as I have already said, must be regarded as of the Asurika type ,for his chief feeling is excess of egoism , as shown in verse 59 of the eighteenth chapter ; ‘’I f , taking your stand upon egoism ,you think ,I will not fight , then vain is this resolve of yours ; Nature will force you to act It is clear , there , that deliberate wrong- doing is not denied by the Gita ; only , it will not call it a sign of freedom. It will not go .ecstasies over it as some Western ethical writers do.It looks upon it as a sure sign of bondage . Freedom of the will ,in the sense of the power to do wrong acts , is a curse, rather than a blessing , from the standpoint of the Gita . Arjuna enjoyed it to his heart’s content before his instruction by Lord Krishna . But was he happy ? Far from it .It was only when he voluntarily relinquished this false freedom for the sake of his true freedom , and could say [Gita, I 8. 73 ] “By Thy Grace, O Lord , my delusion is gone and wisdom has dawned upon me . I will do Thy bidding , that he became happy . Man’s spiritual ascent consists in his renouncing this freedom of the will for the sake of enjoying his true freedom , which consists in union with God . This is the message of the

Gita , which looks at the whole of man’s life from this one standpoint of union with God.There are however, some limitations – and fortunately so – according to the Gita , to man’s enjoying this freedom of the will, that is , of doing evil. In the analysis of voluntary action which is given in verses 13-16 of the eighteenth chapter, five factors are mentioned which are responsible for the productions of action .These are ; (1) the body, (2) the doer, ( 3) the various instruments ,(4)the many kinds of efforts and (5)Fate .Fate( daiva)here means ,as the all-controlling power of God..The agent is only of the causes and can not arrogate to himself the position of being the sole determinant of action. The Gita, therefore says in verse 16 of this chapter, “ Notwithstanding this, however, he who, having an impure mind regards himself as the sole author of his actions, he of perverted intellect seeth not.” A man, consequently, is not

.The sole author of his actions, and he has always to remember that no remember that so action is possible without the all-controlling guidance of God. This puts a definite limit to man’s freedom of the will. The Gita does not regard human beings as the ultimate authors of their actions, for to do so would be to relegate God to a position of relative inferiority Vis-à-vis human beings. It does not believe in an inane God who has renounced all powers and is merely a benevolent spectator. It call God (13-23) “Supervisor and Permitter, Supporter, Enjoyer, the great Lord,” and also (9-18) “the path, Supported Lord, Witness, Abode, Shelter, Friend, Origin, Dissolution, Treasure-house, Imperishable Seed.”

The Gita, therefore, does not regard men as sole authors of their actions their authorship being limited by the over lordship of God. There are two verses, however, in the eleventh chapter which at first sight seem to take away from man even this limited authorship of his actions. These are verses 33-34 of the eleventh chapter and run as follows:-

“Therefore stand up! Win for thyself renown,Conquer thy foes, enjoy the wealth-filled realm,Be thou the instrumental cause, left-handed one.Drona and Bhisma and Jayadratha,Are slain by me. Destroy them fearlessly.Fight! Thou shalt crush thy rivals in the field.”

They seem to suggest that man is really powerless to do anything as everything is done by God Himself. But really they do not suggest any such things. Why do we say that they suggest that man is

absolutely powerless to do anything? It is because it is said that human beings are “instrumental causes .Let us face the question squirely. What exactly is meant when it is claimed that human beings are free? Is it meant that they enjoy absolute freedom even when they are limited, particular individual beings? All that can be claimed is that these finite individuals must be given a chance of being other than they are and of acting otherwise than they do, that is, of being other than mere finite, individual, particular beings and of acting otherwise than in a way contrary to the objective moral order. In other words what can be claimed is that every finite individual must have freedom to improve himself to rise above his limitations and ultimately to be one with God Himself. This freedom no one can assert that the Gita denies.”

Moreover, these verses do not impose any new limitation to human freedom not contemplated in the verses I quoted before. They only make explicit the nature of the daiva tactor present in every human action. They only say that this daiva is the ultimate determining cause of all human actions. but if this is so then human beings become only instrumental causes.

To sum up this part of our discussions of the respective attitudes of the Gita and Kant towards what sidgwick calls “neutral freedom,” which is the first view of freedom held by Kant: the Gita imposes more limitations upon this freedom than Kant does. Kant, in fact imposes no limitations beyond what are imposed by the physical conditions under which man lives. There is no place for daiva in Kant’s philosophy. Moreover, for the Gita it is no freedom at all but bondage. Arjuna enjoyed this kind of freedomBefore his instruction by Lord Krishna., but he gladly surrendered it at the end of his instruction for the sake of the true freedom which consists in placing oneself in the hands of God.

The Rational Freedom

Coming now to Kant’s second freedom, which Sedgwick calls rational freedom, this comes somewhat close to the Gita’s conception of freedom. For the Gita, like Kant, enjoins the suppression of desires and passions. It is the man who has obtained complete mastery over his desires and impulses whom the Gita treats as a free man, whether he is called Sthitaprajna or bhaktiman or trigunatrta. The free man, in fact, in the view of the Gita, is a yogin, and the characteristics of all yogins, whether karma yogins or jnanayogins or bhaktiyogins are, on the negative side, all alike. That is to say, they all mean complete extirpation of whatever binds a man to sensuous objects. For example, the characteristics of the sthitaprajna or the samkhyayogin, as stated in

2. 56-57 are that “his mind is free from anxiety amid pains,” that “he is indifferent to pleasures, loosed from passion, fear and anger” and is “of stable mind,” “indifferent everywhere to what ever happens, either good or bad,” “has no likes or dislikes,” and “is well-poised,” similarly, the characteristics of the bhaktiman are described in 12. 17-19 as follows.

“He who neither loveth nor hateth, nor grieved, nor desired, renouncing good and evil, full of devotion, he is dear to Me.

“Alike to foe and friend, and also in fame and ignominy, alike in pleasures and pains, devoid of attachment.

“Taking equally praise and reproach, silent, wholly content with whatever cometh, homeless, firm in mind, full of devotion, that man is dear to Me.”

Exactly similar characteristics are given of the trigunathta in 14. 24-25 :

“Balanced in pleasure and pain, self-reliant, to whom a lump of earth, a stone and gold are alike, the same to those who are dear and to those who are not dear, firm, the same in censure and in praise.

“The same in honor and ignominy, the same to friend and foe, abandoning all undertakings he is said to have transcended the gunas.”On the negative side, therefore, there is very great similarity between the Kantian conception of rational freedom and the Gita’s idea of freedom. Just as for kant autonomy means freedom from the sway of pleasures and impulses, so also for the gita it means freedom from the bondage of the senses. But what about the positive side? Here there is a great difference between the standpoint of Kant and that of the Gita. This difference is due to the difference in their respective philosophical outlooks. For the Gita it is not enough to be free from the bondage of the senses is, in its view, only a means to something positive. This positive thing is realization of one union with God. Even in the verses which I have just quoted from the Gita, where the characteristics of the bhaktiman are described mostly form the negative side, there occur the words “dear to me.” These words “ dear to me” indicate the Gita’s angle of vision. They do not find a place in Kant’s account of freedom. For the gita that man is only free who is dear to God. Such words as “dear to me,” “enters into my being”, “reaches Brahmanirvana” give the positive characteristics of freedom, which may be otherwise expressed as union with God.

This positive characteristic is missing in Kant, and this constitutes the main defect of his ethics. This defect is the same as the barrenness of the moral law, which is universally regarded as the chief weakness of the Kantian

ethics, for freedom means with Kant nothing else than the realization of the moral law, which however, is absolutely devoid of content. This contentlessness of the moral law is, indeed an offshoot of his purely abstract conception of Self or Reason. Self in Kant’s philosophy is so abstract that ist cannot join itself to any object or to any other self. It is, in fact, the bare identity of itself with itself, the pure “ I am I,” which is incapable alike of giving any objective or social consciousness. It is indeed like a baby which can only suck its own fingers. This barrenness of self or reason is responsible for his declaring knowledge phenomenal and also for pronouncing the realization of the moral law in this world impossible without extraneous aid.For the Gita freedom is not identity with such a Self or reason but identity with something wider and broader than this. The reason of Kant is an individual and isolated Reason which is

Incapable of affecting either a junction with the world of objects or with the world of subjects. It hangs, as if were, in mid-air. Identity with such a Reason cannot mean freedom. We have to pass beyond this to the Universal Reason if freedom is to be attained. As I have already pointed out, the Gita visualizes a Supra-rational Consciousness which alone is competent to give freedom. The characteristics of such a consciousness, as described in Gita. 6. 29 and 6.30 is that “it sees itself in everything and everything in itself.” The Kantian Reason in not in a position to offer us this consciousness, and consequently, with its help it is not possible to attain freedom. It is a home detune, not allowed to go beyond its own narrow sphere. The Gita impresses upon us the necessity of going beyond such a narrow Reason. But when we do so we shall cross the boundary of morality and step into that to religion.

We may thus express the difference between the Kantian view of freedom and that to the Gita by saying that the latter means the identity of the moral life with the religious, whereas the former does not. The Gita’s view is a consequence of the synoptic view of human life adopted by it. The Gita looks upon man’s life as a whole. It does not divide it into watertight compartments such as economic, moral, religious, etc. It does not consider moral life to be complete until it enables one to have realization of union with God.It is otherwise with Kant. For him the fundamental truths of religion, such as the immortality of the soul and the existence of God, are only postulates of morality. There is a world of difference between treating them as postulates and looking upon them as the culmination of the moral life. For Kant moral life rests upon an antinomy being inherent in the idea of its being realized, for realization means objectification in the world of sense, whereas the moral law is the pure expression of reason and contains no element of sense. On account of this antinomy, the

moral law cannot realize itself, and its realization, therefore, depends upon conditions which are external to the moral law. Hence the necessity of moral postulates. These postulates are the conditions under which the moral law can realize itself in a sensuous world. Broadly speaking, these conditions are those which make possible a combination of virtue and happiness, that is to say, the idea of a sum mum bonus which combines in itself the idea of a superman bonus or the highest good, that is, virtue, and that of a consummatum or a whole and complete good that includes happiness .The required conditions therefore which make it possible for the moral law to realize itself, are those which make possible combination of virtue and happiness in order to understand how this combination is possible,we have to make a distinction between phenomenon and nounena a distinction which has already proved itself very useful,in as much as it has enabled us in the critique of pure reason to get over the antimony between natural necessity and freedom .As Caird puts it :If we look merely to the connection of events which each other as phenomena in the world of sense, we must recognize that there is no necessary connection between the virtuous will ,as manifesting itself in certain actions in the phenomenal world ,and happiness as resulting state .But if we think of our self as noumena in an intelligible word and of the relation of our nominal existence , We can conceive that the virtuous will if not immediately yet medially (through an intelligible author of nature) may be necessarily combines with happiness as an effect in the world of sense, though this combination would be quite accidental if we look to the world of sence alone. It appears, therefore, that the antinomy which arises when we try to connect virtue and happiness is due to confusion between the relations of phenomenon to each other and the relation of things in themselves to these phenomenon. An intelligible author of nature, therefore, is one of the postulates which make the realization of moral life possible. Immortality of the soul is another, for before we realize the combination of virtue and happiness, it is necessary to realize the combination of virtue and happiness, it is necessary to realize virtue. And as the realization of virtue is impossible in the brief span of this life, there must be other lives also after the end of this one. In other words, the continued existence of the soul after death is the necessary condition for the realization of virtue. Thus the two great truths of religion, the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, are necessary conditions for the realization of the moral law.Thus, God and the immortality of the soul are truths which exist for Kant only for the sake of the moral life.

Although he suggested something no less monstrous, namely, that, God and the soul exist only for the sake of the moral life. It is true he made a different approach to these truths in his critique of judgment

and presented nature itself as revealing a divine purpose, but this presentation has only value as giving us a subjective satisfaction and does not entitle us to say that nature as an objective reality is itself governed by any Teleological Idea. Nor is the position very much improved in his essay on The Idea of Universal History and his treatise on Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason.

The contrast with the position of Gita is here very glaring. For the Gita it is not God who exists for the moral life but is the moral life which exists for God. The Gita declares in unequivocal terms the hand of God in every action of man.

“The Lord dwelled in the hearts of all beings and by His Maya; he turns them round and round, as if mounted on potter, s wheel.

“In him take refuge with all the being, O Bharata; by His grace thou shalt obtain supreme peace and the eternal status.” (8.6-6)

In still more emphatic terms it declares:

“Abandoning all duties, take shelter in me alone.I will liberate thee from all sins.” (18. 66)

Thinking of oneself as the sole determining factor in one’sAction (without for Kind no moral action is possible) is forThe Gita a sign of egoism and its abrogation a supreme necessity

“Fixing the thought on Me. Thou shaft, by my grace, overcome all difficulties; but if from egoism, thou will not listen to me, thou shalt

Perish.”(i8 58)

Kant says, "we could not prove freedom to be something actual in ourselves and in human nature. We saw merely that we must presuppose it if we want to think of a being as rational." Kant also thinks that there is "a sort of circle" in our thinking about the relationship between freedom and morality:" we assume that we are free so that we may think of ourselves as subject to moral laws," and we "think of ourselves as subject to moral laws because we have attributed to ourselves freedom of the will." He then ends with, "Freedom is, therefore, only an idea of reason whose objective reality is in itself questionable

Kant calls practical "everything that is possible through freedom", and the pure practical laws that are never given through sensuous conditions but are held analogously with the universal law of causality are moral laws. Reason can give us only the "pragmatic laws of free action through the senses", but pure practical laws given by reason a priori dictate "what ought to be done

The Gita’s standpoint is the centric, whereas the KantianStandpoint is not only anthropocentric, but extremely individual-stick. Kant looks at the problem of morality from the standpointof the individual human consciousness. He has not been able to Rise even to the social standpoint, not to speak of the cosmic andSupra-cosmic standpoint, of the Gita.

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